


Lines Connect

by pressdbtwnpages



Category: Panic At The Disco
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-15
Updated: 2007-03-15
Packaged: 2017-10-16 03:30:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/167945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pressdbtwnpages/pseuds/pressdbtwnpages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Jon's not one to get deeply significant about things... but this particular photograph captures everything so perfectly.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Lines Connect

**Author's Note:**

> For the [March 6th prompt at ](http://community.livejournal.com/we_are_cities/47216.html#cutid1)[](http://community.livejournal.com/we_are_cities/profile)[**we_are_cities**](http://community.livejournal.com/we_are_cities/). Set during Nothing Rhymes With Circus. Thanks to [](http://wordsaremyfaith.livejournal.com/profile)[**wordsaremyfaith**](http://wordsaremyfaith.livejournal.com/) for the beta, the hand-holding, and the listening to me whine. This story is better for her input.

_Things don't fall apart. Things hold. Lines connect in thin ways that last and last and lives become generations made out of pictures and words just kept. - Lucille Clifton_

  
Jon's the first one Tom calls when things end with The Academy Is.... Jon curls up in his bunk and listens, breathing comfortingly across the line until at last Tom asks brokenly, "What do I do now?"

"You come here and hang out with us for awhile." Jon's answer is instinctive and immediate.

When he shuffles out to the front of the bus and ducks his head, mumbling that he kind of invited Tom to come stay, Brendon jumps up from his seat on the couch and says, "Awesome! I love Tom!"

Ryan barely looks up from his book, but says, "Yeah, man, great," in a vague, distracted, Ryan-y sort of way.

Spencer just catches his eye, long and steady, and wordlessly acknowledges the things one does to support one's best friend when he's hurting. He gets it. Of course he would.

Tom's not a blast the first few days he's on tour with them, and everyone walks on eggshells around him. Jon's stressed out, torn in two. On the one hand, he has a job to do and three really good friends to do it with, but on the other, he's got Tom huddling in his bunk, looking broken and uncomfortable any time music plays. They're a band on tour who happen to enjoy music. Tom looks uncomfortable a lot of the time.

They get a night at a hotel about a week in. Jon kind of figures Tom will bunk with the crew. In his head, Tom is working, like last year when he was a tech for TAI. But instead, Spencer gets another room without saying anything and Jon and Tom share.

That first hotel-night, Jon bats his eyes at Zach and asks if he will please, please get some alcohol. For Tom. And, uh, could he please not tell Ryan?

Zach rolls his eyes and tells Jon to stop hanging around with Brendon so much, and that if he ever bats his eyes at Zach again he gets nothing, "You hear me? Nothing!" But an hour later, someone from the hotel shows up with a bottle of red wine and two glasses. She doesn't even raise her eyebrows when Jon opens the door and Tom's shirtless in the room.

Jon pours himself a glass and leaves the bottle on the desk where Tom's screwing around on the computer. He doesn't exactly know what's going to happen, but he's pretty sure there needs to be alcohol. Not the least because Jon hasn't had a drink in forever.

When Tom finally gets done with whatever, Jon's reading something Ryan loaned him. It's not bad, hard to get into though, and Jon feels like he's missing something and also like there's going to be a quiz when he's done. So when Tom clears his throat, Jon flips a page and says, "There's wine, man. Pour yourself a glass."

"I don't drink alone, loser. Come drink with me."

And it's Tom and he's sad and really this was the whole point, so Jon carefully puts the book down and grabs his glass before ambling over to him.

"So," Jon says, forcing his smile a little.

"Hey, asshole, if you have something to tell me, just say it," Tom tells him, not unkindly.

"Sorry, sorry. I'm just... used to these guys now." Jon gestures sideways at the wall.

"You have to be gentle?" The way Tom says it kind of rankles. Spencer and Ryan and Brendon are his friends now, his band, his... in a weird way his family. You don't demean that. Tom ought to know better.

"I don't have to be. I want to, I like, not hurting them. They're my friends."

"I'm sorry, man," Tom apologizes staring into his glass. "I miss them. I. I don't..."

Tom stops talking and clenches his jaw and suddenly Jon gets it. Tom just lost four of his closest friends, his almost-family, and that hurts and Tom doesn't know what to do with that. Come to think of it, neither does Jon.

"It's cool, man. I get it, it's cool."

And then they've got a bottle of wine to drink and pictures to take and old jokes to make new again and Tom's back like Jon wanted him to be.

Things go pretty well after that. Tom starts doing crew stuff and bonding with the guys and taking pictures when no one's looking.

Having his best friend around is really nice. Really, really nice. Someone to sneak off and take pictures with, and then look at pictures with, and talk about composition and stuff with, it's all just nice. It's nice to agree about where the best pizza in the world is from, and to have someone to drink with, because, okay, Jon's not an alcoholic and he's not an idiot - he knows his limit and he can decide where on the scale of inebriation he wants to be. Ryan doesn't get that, not really, and Jon's not going to sit him down and have this incredibly uncomfortable conversation about alcohol. He had one with Spencer once, which pretty much boiled down to this: Ryan's not comfortable with alcohol, period. Jon's unwilling to give up drinking entirely. Jon does his best to keep his drinking away from Ryan and never, ever makes him deal with the consequences, and Ryan deals with knowing that Jon, and sometimes, occasionally, Brendon, drink. It makes Jon feel guilty every time he takes a sip, so Tom's guilt-free approach to drinking is awesome.

But after awhile Jon starts to notice things. The clicking of a camera shutter when he and Tom are the only ones in a room. How Brendon and Ryan and Spencer huddle together and look surprised when Jon walks in. The rational part of Jon's brain says he just hasn't been spending enough time with them lately, that it's nothing, that it's fine. But he can feel Brendon's eyes on the back of his neck and something deep and dark within him wonders if this is how Brent felt.

Then one night, Tom passes out early in their shared hotel room and Jon decides to go over and talk to Brendon and Ryan for a bit. They're not in their room, so Jon tries Spencer's. The door's not locked, not even shut really, so Jon pushes it open a little.

Ryan and Brendon are curled around Spencer, watching a movie in the dark. Brendon's petting his hair and Ryan's rubbing his back. They don't notice Jon at all until he's right next to Ryan, saying, "Scoot over."

They beam at him, three identical white crescents in the darkness and Jon suddenly misses them deeply, inexplicably. He slides in on his side, up against Ryan's back, and whispers, "Hi."

They whisper back shyly and at one point Ryan squeezes his hand. They get to talking - whispering, really - in low quiet voices, not about shows or band stuff (it's not like they don't see each other every day, not like they haven't been talking). They talk about the dream Brendon had when he fell asleep in the dressing room earlier, and about how Spencer's sort of thinking about a haircut, and how much money Jon actually spends at Bath and Body Works, which is countered by Brendon and Jon interrogating, "How much do you spend on makeup, Ryan?" and then Brendon saying defensively, "I like how Jon smells." At which point Jon sits up and gives him a hug, stretching over Ryan and Spencer to do so.

Eventually they fall asleep, waking up with dead arms and stiff backs and cricks in their necks because even as close as they're cuddled, there's no way for four grown men to sleep comfortably in a single hotel room bed.

Jon slips out of bed first, stretching and mumbling about a shower and getting dressed.

"Jon," Spencer says, voice scratchy and eyes big and pleading. "Don't forget about us, okay?"

Jon laughs and privately thinks that Spencer's the one who's been spending too much time with Brendon. "Never. In fact, I challenge you all to a video game marathon on the bus after the show." He cuts his eyes at Ryan and they both say, "Not Guitar Hero."

Tom's got some plan for after the show, has found some guys up for a trip to a bar. "A real bar, Jon!"

Jon shakes his head. "You go ahead. I've got a date with some kids and a Playstation."

Tom follows him back to the bus anyway, and snaps a picture of Jon sprawled on the floor in front of the tv. When he sees the picture later, it gives Jon sort of a twisted amount of pleasure that he's not really alone in the picture. Ryan had lit the candles before he went to dig something out of his bunk, you can see Spencer's ID and keys clearly though he was off grabbing a bottle of water in that particular moment, and Brendon's actually in the picture, his red-shod feet in the top left corner.

The picture is a genuine snapshot of Jon's life now. Scattered and messy, with scraps of his family everywhere. And as awesome as Tom is, as nice as it is having him around, the tour will end soon and they'll go home. Later Jon will meet back up with his boys alone, with his boys and they'll click together again, like they did in the beginning, like they did last night. Their personal belongings will be scattered through Jon's life and he'll leave his mark in theirs. And Tom will always be a phone call away, the man behind the lens, calling out obnoxious directions and making his presence known.

Jon's not one to get deeply significant about things. Finding metaphors in the everyday is really more Ryan's forte, but this particular photograph captures everything so uniquely, perfectly, showing his world as flawed and real as it is, with the four most important people in his life surrounding him, and Jon can't help but get a little philosophical.


End file.
